Driving normalities

As I am being driven back into Cambridge this morning to stay with friends there for a couple of weeks I am pondering the differences in traffic. There are of course the obvious lane discipline, traffic jams and lack of horns, but I was struck by one particular one as I watched a learner driver run out of slip land space as he tried to merge into nose to tail traffic heading into town. It was a brightly coloured, newish looking , all signed  up motoring school car complete with bright obvious L learner plates. The contrast to Rayagada could not have been more apparent. In my nagar there was one driving instructor who also had a small car. But his looked  anything but new with typical bumps and bruises and balding tyres. Every morning as I walked into work I would pass a collection of young men, all I suspect students at the local Engineering College, who had gathered together with their cycles to wait for their turn in the car. No book and pay for an hour plus here, their lessons consisted of 5-10 minutes of driving round and round the sandy lanes of the nagar. They probably did not get out of 2nd gear. And of course a vital part of their training was to learn to hoot their horn at each junction, even when there was no other traffic, car, bike or cycle, and no pedestrians in sight. It got to be very normal. Now it seems I am living two normalities and happily adjusting between the two :)